The London Stock Exchange Group (LSE.L) has unanimously rejected a takeover bid from Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) (0388.HK).
LSE said in a statement on Friday lunchtime that the board had “considered the unsolicited, preliminary, and highly conditional proposal” and concluded it has “fundamental flaws.”
“The Board has fundamental concerns about the key aspects of the Conditional Proposal: strategy, deliverability, form of consideration, and value,” the company said in a statement.
LSE said it would not engage further with HKEX and would instead focus on its acquisition of data business Refinitiv.
HKEX surprised the market on Wednesday with a £32bn bid for LSE. It said a merger of the two businesses would “connect East and West” and “offer customers greater innovation, risk management, and trading opportunities.”
Analysts said the deal looked unlikely from the start.
“There are only few instances of cross-continental exchange mergers that have been completed successfully, as nationalistic concerns often arise,” UBS analysts Michael Werner and Federico Braga said in a note to clients on Friday.
“Given the recent business disruptions in Hong Kong, we would argue that this adds to the potential perceived risk of a proposed LSE/HKEx merger.”
Analyst Benjamin Goy at Deutsche Bank said the deal would be “strategically and politically challenging.”
Shares in HKEX fell sharply on Thursday in Hong Kong as investors guessed the deal would be rejected. The stock price fall wiped around $1bn off the company’s value.
LSE shares jumped by 10% on Wednesday when the deal was first announced but the rally quickly faded.
Shortly after the rejection of the takeover proposal on Friday, LSE shares were trading up 1.1% on the day. The stock had been trading as much as 1.8% higher prior to the announcement.
LSE has been the target of several takeover bids over the years, most recently a proposed merger with Deutsche Borse in 2016. That deal was blocked by EU regulators on competition grounds.
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Sooner
So why would the LSE want a totally communist government to control them. However, who knows the shareholders only know profits and the future be damned.
Can you explain what is wrong with the communism？Do you know why Western propaganda machines demonize the CCP?Why did Hong Kong’s interest groups insist on using colonial textbooks and anti-Chinese education for their children for 22 years?Occupy Wall Street demonstrators are only a little awake！
Ted Nee Show me where in history communism has been successful and worked successfully to rid its people out of poverty. Look at China CCP and how it blocks internet to mainland.
L.L S. China has the largest middle class in the world, are they not a success?
L.L S. You mean Soviet as the only example?
china is not really communist as it does allow free enterprise
just no allowed to criticise ccp though
They’ll wish they had accepted in a few months
Nick Biddle why?
@S the unpredictable future of brexit
@sunnydays DDT Better to have have a chance of failure than a guarantee though. Having your stock exchange owned by a foreign entity is worse than a questionable future imo.
伦交所打脸港交所回执：“We recognise the scale of the opportunity in China and value greatly our relationships there. However, we do not believe HKEX provides us with the best long-term positioning in Asia or the best listing / trading platform for China.
We value our mutually beneficial partnership with the Shanghai Stock Exchange which is our preferred and direct channel to access the many opportunities with China.
“港倒”概念制霸未来市场二十年！
Very suitable offer by the numbers considering England in reverse alphabetical order is 132
E=22 n=13 g=20 l=15 a=26 n=13 d=23 – I would advise checking the math before publishing
This is a proven CCP’s plot to circumvent the petrol dollar by further internationalizing rmb through 18 continuous trading hours in a day. After being rejected by LSE’s major stock holders on the combination offer, CCP has decided to embark on hostile acquisition. US Treasury must be warned that a different currency war is about to erupt.
@Adinna Ikhwani I rest my case haha. There’s no point asking me why I’m bothering if you can’t even answer yourself.
@Alan Doherty then, stop ANSWER me, ok?
Lol
@Adinna Ikhwani Then why are you answering to me? Haha
@Adinna Ikhwani HE AINT WRONG. Him and I are BFF’s with Xi and I just called Xi last night. Xi confirmed that was his plan.
@Nice Guy yeah2 whatever “NICE GUY”
hong kong money is trying desperately get out of hong kong.
@Alan Doherty Hong Kong is a “proxy country” to China. Please explain “proxy country” and how it relate to Hong Kong? Which countries or international bodies identify Hong Kong as a “County”? Elaborate on this delusion.
lie01234 Proxy country means a puppet country which has no real direct control and extents the influence of another country. Just like the British proxied Hong Kong before, now does China.
Whether or not other people think you are country does not define their country. In practice a country is usually has its own government, own territories, culture, laws, passports and currency. Not all are required but Hong Kong has far more than enough to justify its view as another country. Furthermore the residents of that country overwhelmingly define themselves as a separate entity from China.
@Alan Doherty What you listed can make anyone or group of people to claim a piece of land or other country sovereign land and label itself a country. A Native American reservation must be a country also with that logic.
@lie01234 BRO DID U WATCH THE NEWS ABOUT HONG KONG PROTESTS???????? GOOGLE IT YOU LAZY BUM
@Fitrian Hidayat tikooo
China is trying to anchor Hong Kong’s stock exchange to the stability and prosperity of London in preparation for the inevitable invasion of Hong Kong and suppression of its “unruly” ethnic Cantonese. Should the deal have succeeded, China would be given an early green light and a free rein to commit all sorts of atrocity in Hong Kong, turning it into an ethnic cleansing camp as a second Xinjang and Tibet with impunity.
I’m glad the deal did not succeed. I wonder if the Chinese government in Beijing is desperate to get a grip on a slipping situation, but their attempts to assimilate their own ethnic minorities and subjugate the world are no longer subtle.
Hoang Mai ethnic Cantonese?? Will u get a grip you silly Viet predicting nonsense 😂 what are you? An ethnic Saigonese ??
Vanessa L Vanessa L Maybe you should step out from behind your prejudice and privileges of being in the wrong and ignorant majority. 🙂 Maybe then you will start seeing other ethnic minorities in China not as the meat shields for your inflated national ego and undue cultural insecurity, and more like sentient beings with free will, you know. 🙂
Vulgarity is no substitute for wit. If you have the brain to put on an argument, go ahead, but calling others’ judgments silly without being able to back it up is plainly pathetic.
But then again, why should you put in any more effort? I doubt your benevolent Chinese government is capable of or inclined to paying you more than 50 cents per comment. 😉
Sát nhập Lưỡng Quảng vào VN là vừa, nếu có thời cơ
Clearly the West is nervous and afraid of the Chinese to rule the world. Period.
@Wing Dings Well played fence sitter
I think we’re all afraid of that mate
Andi idiot
@Wing Dings In a world where everybody is brainwashed to some extent I’d probably argue those with the freedom of press, lack of an overarching big brother level surveillance system and state sponsored internet police are probably the lesser brainwashed.
Mainland chinese tourist spotted
It’s not a takeover proposal by Hong Kong, it’s China’s Communist Party that is using Hong Kong as a proxy for takeover.
$32 billion only!? You’re telling me that a billionaire can just buy a stock exchange. Wow
A stock exchange is simply a middle man.
Think of it like a bridge between 2 cities. The cities are where all the goods at.
@Kobe A5 Wagyu but that bridge is extremely important for any future growth
I don’t think you have an idea how stock exchanges work. They are just a platform/intermediary that connects a buyer with a seller. Hence the word “exchange”, nothing more than that.
Traditionally they were invaluable but with new technologies there are lots of other exchanges that push more volume than the London Stock Exchange now.
Just go on Wall Street, it’s not as crowded as it used to be, people don’t use the old exchanges as much.
The West do anything they can to stop China as biggest Superpower but they can not
Still America, just quadruple your GDP per capita and waste as much money as they do on military spending… and you’re still not there. But all power to you, good luck!
China will crumble from within as it gets wealthier, it will eat away at it like a cancer
hong kong isn’t a strong economic force anymore, no point in buying them
There will never be a Brexit, i’ve been saying this sense the beginning but the elites decided that the vote for Brexit to happen wasn’t in their best interest so they decided that it wont happen, doesn’t matter if you vote for something if the elites don’t agree with it then it wont happen.
Theresa may was only placed there to sabotage the whole process from the start
Kevin “the elites”
lmao
Luh Mao
How can the British masters let Hong Kong lackeys run them instead? The Hong Kong lackeys wouldn’t want that either, they want to keep licking that nice British boot, you know “freedom”
Dont ever accept chinese money
Damn UK accent is horrible. Sounds like he’s being prodded as he’s speaking.
This makes me happy.
Quiero saver si es real o. Bueno invertír en esta empreza
Lo mismo me pregunto